Empire Resorts, the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe’s Sullivan County casino development partner has notified the Tribe of its intention to abandon the Mohawk’s Catskills casino project at Monticello Raceway – MidHudsonNews reports.The Tribe received a letter from Empire on February 5, 2008 informing the Tribe of their intentions to “shut down” their Monticello Development office and to immediately cease funding of necessary pre-development expenses associated with the Mohawk project.

Empire has previously communicated its intent to enter into a joint venture with a competing gaming interest to move the raceway and VLT operations to a different location a few miles from the existing Monticello Racetrack.

The St. Regis Mohawk Tribal Council has determined that Empire’s notice constitutes an express breach of its gaming agreements with the Tribe and is committed to aggressively pursuing any and all appropriate legal remedies to protect the interests of the Tribe.

On January 5 YWN reported (HERE) that the federal government had rejected plans for two casinos in the Catskill Mountains, saying that the reservations of the two tribes that submitted the plans were too far from where the casinos would be built, in Monticello and in the town of Thompson. The decision was a major setback in the 30-year effort to bring gambling to Sullivan County.

One of the proposed casinos, at Monticello Raceway, received the support of Gov. Eliot Spitzer and was expected to attract six million visitors a year, generate 3,000 jobs and provide the state with an estimated $100 million a year. But the plans faced intense opposition………
(Source: MidHudsonNews.com)